This division has forced uncomfortable reflection. Did I make the right decision in my own life? Should I have stayed the course at a consulting firm or big tech company? An impulse for me in these situations is to cite the valid moral compromises friends have been forced to make, from claiming social media platforms don’t damage the mental health of youth to profiting from immigrant workers making less than minimum wage with no benefits or protections.

But I think there’s something more fundamental at play here, and that’s a desire to live an authentic life. I was never called to be in those positions. Not that I was called for something greater, that line of thinking is egotistical self-defensiveness, but rather something different.

I read something recently that we are all extras in God’s play. That gave me a lot of peace. To me, it represents the duality of not being the main character, but also the gift of knowing you have a unique role to play, a unique thread to pull on, a unique purpose to live into. What a beautiful thing to die empty, with an inner peace that one’s unique amalgamation of skills, interests, and passions were expressed in the material world.

I feel like I recently witnessed that with Bad Bunny’s Superbowl halftime performance. As he sang and gyrated his hips amongst sugarcane fields of costumed humans, he embodied Latin joy. In hearing reactions from viewers who felt healed as their countries names were called out at the conclusion of the performance, it was clear that Bad Bunny used his gifts as a portal for love and joy.

When reflecting on work and faith, I read Tim Keller’s Every Good Endeavor. He calls out the reality that Jesus came to Earth not as a king or banker or other position held in esteem. He came as a carpenter. It is divine to treat every position, regardless of societal prestige, as a way to honor God. This then requires excellence in all pursuits.

I witnessed this phenomena while visiting Vietnam, a profoundly spiritual country, last month. The hospitality felt rooted in joy, service, and the pursuit of excellence, from the Gen Z foodie who led our street food tour with charm and knowledge to the tailor who insisted we return until the garments fit perfectly to the restauranteur who ensured broths bloomed with flavor and herbs were fresh.

In Martin Luther King Jr.’s sermon “The Drum Major Instinct” he highlights the natural human instinct to want to be out front of the marching band, serving as the charismatic drum major. He explicitly calls out the empty ego boost stemming from academic affiliation, accolades, and conspicuous consumption. Delivered two months before his assassination, King prophetically shares that he wants to be known not for his Nobel Peace Prize, but for being a drum major for compassion. He exemplifies how humans can channel the instinct for greatness to be great at loving their fellow man.

So these are the hopes I have for my own life, of which my career is a meaningful part. I hope to live my unique purpose and pull on the thread of injustice assigned to me, which my working hypothesis is producing art that heals people and addressing economic inequality. In the message of The Power of Now, I hope to be liberated from the identity of my past and anxiety about my future, instead savoring the present. I hope to do all things with excellence and gratitude, not forgetting the need for sabbath or the principal of self-compassion in the process. And I hope to be drum major, not for my own ego, but for the healing of others, and myself in the process.

However, in college and young adulthood, I noticed that so much of my reading was for my academic and professional life, and I’d largely stopped reading to expand my horizons or feed my soul.

So, in 2015, I set a New Year’s Resolution to read 12 books that year, a manageable book-a-month. That number, some years spiking to 34, stabilized at 24 books a year. It’s a cadence that means I’m always reading something, but is manageable enough to retain the joy of reading, rather than adding the stress of another to-do, and give me space to take on some hunkers (aka long reads).

In total, I’ve read 255 books since coming up with the resolution and listened to an additional 102. Ten years into resuming my reading journey, I wanted to make a list of my 10 favorites of the 357 consumed.

Needless to say, that was an impossible task. But I noticed that a lot of the books making the shortlist for my favorites centered on a similar theme: womanhood. As I moved from my early 20s to mid 30s, I felt compelled to read stories, both real and imagined, on the beauty and trials of relationships with family, romantic partners, friends, and, most importantly, oneself.

Fiction:

• Fleishman is in Trouble — My hottest take is that this should be required pre-marital reading. I love books that show the same events through the eyes of different narrators, and this book does that expertly. The book starts with the accounts of the husband as he regales dating as a divorcee and the carelessness, bordering on neglect, of his ex-wife, then shifts to her perspective. A harrowing take on the stresses of marriage, parenting, and ambition.
• We Need to Talk About Kevin — My darkest recommendation on the list, this novel excavates the mind of a reluctant mother, whose first-born son becomes a school mass murderer. It says the quiet part of parenting out loud and, like Fleishman, should be required reading for anyone on the fence about children.
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow — This book is more of an ensemble piece, but the character of Sadie is a wonderfully complex woman willing to subjugate herself for a love confused by mentorship and test friendships when credit for her work is consistently given to her male co-founder, a phenomena I’ve experienced first-hand. She demonstrates the gumption required to succeed in the male-dominated field of video games.
• The Power — This book interrogates the world we would live in if women, rather than men, were the physically stronger gender. In the world created by author Naomi Alderman, women have an electric current, allowing them to zap men into submission. In the end, the themes of corruption, self-aggrandizement, and the quest for, yes, power manifest even in a world that has been built in the feminine. The book made me realize how I’d taken so many norms for granted.
• Tell Me Lies — This book presents as a beach read, so much so that I was a little self-conscious about putting it on this list. However, like reality TV, the frivolous facade belies the critiques this book delivers on toxic masculinity and female self-esteem. The book follows Lucy, a college student, and her deeply toxic relationship with Stephen. Required reading for anyone who has ever had a Stephen in their lives or anyone hoping to raise a daughter immune to his psychological warfare. Also a fabulous TV adaptation on Hulu.
• American Marriage — This book is an interrogation of loyalty. When life unjustly takes a wrecking ball to best laid plans, what are a woman’s obligations to her husband and to her herself? In tracking Celestial’s journey of supporting her wrongfully imprisoned husband without de facto imprisoning herself, we see the internal struggles inherent to seeking better for yourself and your people.
• Intermezzo— This book seemingly focuses on the relationship between two brothers, but I found the relationships each brother has with the women in his life most interesting. I appreciated that the book questioned what you are willing to tolerate, from gossip about a “taboo” age gap to known other partners, to be with the one you care about.

Non-fiction:

• Three Women — I reread this book this year, and it hit just as good the second read. It’s one of the best works of narrative non-fiction out there. The author started the project by going to bars and asking women about desire. She then found three women and followed their stories, ranging from a restauranteur with a cuckold husband to a high schooler coming to terms with the inappropriateness of the relationship she had with the school’s star teacher to a married woman tempted by the crumbs of an ex turned current lover. It leans into the messiness and diversity of female desire with honesty and bravery.
• Random Family — This book was written by a journalist who spent 11 years following families in the Bronx. It’s strength is in its multigenerational depiction; the same trials of teenage pregnancy, a rotating cast of drug-dealing men, sexual abuse, and poverty haunt grandmother, mother, and granddaughter. At a certain point into the 400+ page book, violence feels banal. Despite the grief permeating this book, there is also overwhelming hope and love and a pride in motherhood that lives in stark opposition to what is depicted in works like We Need to Talk About Kevin and Fleishman is in Trouble.
• Tiny Beautiful Things — When Cheryl Strayed received notoriety for her memoir, Wild, she revealed that she was the voice behind Dear Sugar, an anonymous advice column. This book is a compilation of those columns. I was gifted this book by my college best friend, and that’s exactly what this book feels like — advice from your best friend that will make you laugh, cry, and say “damn it, you’re right.”
• In Extremis — This biography was written in memoriam by the subject’s best friend, which I find so beautiful. It tells the “the life and death of” war correspondant Marie Colvin. She is the archetype of a badass: reporting on human rights crises around the world and losing her eye reporting on the Tamil Tigers. But her personal life, riddled with unreliable men and reliable alcohol, is a total mess. After finishing the book, I couldn’t decide if it was an inspirational hero’s journey or cautionary tale, but therein lies its power.

Whether based in the Bronx, Boston, or Bosnia, the women in these stories embody and relay the complexities, beauty, and trauma of womanhood.

I am more than halfway through Karen Hao’s Empire of AI. I just finished her chapter titled “Disaster Capitalism” and feel sick to my stomach.

There is a lot that Hao criticizes about AI in the book thus far, from the censoring of safety advocates to the environmental cost of data centers to the theft of intellectual property. But there is something uniquely ugly to me about generating billions in net worth off the backs of workers paid pennies. It grossed me out when billionaires emerged from gig platforms like Uber, Lyft, and Doordash, and it grosses me out when billionaires emerge from companies executing and benefiting from content moderation and development.

Step one of the punching down playbook is the bait and switch. As I have spoken about publicly, Uber drivers took our loans to buy cars and joined the platform on an agreed upon per minute and per mile rate, only to have that wage slashed by 35 percent then a subsequent 20 percent, while commission rates stayed the same or increased with a switch to upfront pricing. In other words, the number of hours that used to earn you $10 would now earn you $5.20.

In a similar bait and switch, Hao reports that Scale AI launched a program called Remotasks Plus in Venezuela with the promise that workers would learn new skills, advance their careers, and receive increased earnings through consistent working hours and hourly wages.

“We found through a spreadsheet the company left public that the workers’ earnings began to decline within weeks of the program’s launch; workers who started with earnings of forty dollars a week were soon making less than six dollars or nothing at all. In April 2021, the company shuttered the Remotasks Plus program entirely and reverted to its standard operations, doling out tasks in a piecemeal fashion with no standard or guaranteed hours.” Karen Hao, Empire of AI

A common retort I hear to this critique is global wage disparity. I am not arguing that companies need to pay the same hourly wage in every economy. I am arguing that companies shouldn’t cut wages after workers are locked into the work because they have invested in the tools of the trade, whether that be a vehicle or a laptop, and potentially left other jobs under a set of promises that soon become obsolete.

Step two of the punching down playbook is euphemistic language. In the case of Scale AI, they use “RLHF,” which stands for reinforcement learning from human feedback. RLHF sounds clinical, even futuristic. It belies the reality of humans sitting at a laptop, waiting for a ping to sort whether an inbound prompt is horrifically or mildly violent for a few cents.

Step three of the punching down playbook is using third-party contractors to separate out liability and brand risk. Gig platforms do not have this luxury, but it is a longtime tradition of companies like Meta for content moderation and Google for cafeteria and janitorial workers. This use of third-party contractors is also an unintended consequence of laws forcing public companies to report the earnings differential of their highest and lowest paid employee. The most common test to see if a worker is misclassified as a contractor is the ABC test. To be a contractor, a worker must satisfy all these conditions:

• The worker is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of the work and in fact;
• The worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business; and
• The worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as that involved in the work performed.

If AI companies are trading on the sophistication and accuracy of their models and “RLHF” is working on doing just that, I think that there is a solid argument that these workers are misclassified as contractors.

I admit to being a hypocrite. I hail Ubers and consult ChatGPT. They are great products. But the narrative that it must be this way is false. If OpenAI can cover its $5B deficit to pay for computing power, if it were a value, it could find the funds to pay people fairly, or at the least give them the security of guaranteed hours and earnings. It is a hard sell to me that a company can create AGI but cannot accurately track hours of workers in another country. It is time to abandon the punching down playbook, or at least question the humanity of those who insist on using it.

Around 15.5 million U.S. adults have used injectable medicines like Ozempic (for diabetes) and Wegovy (for obesity) to lose weight, according to a May 2024 Gallup poll. This means six percent of Americans have tried these drugs, known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, which work by mimicking hormones that regulate appetite and blood sugar, and affect both the gut and the brain. Three percent of Americans are currently taking these weight loss drugs. I expect this number to increase as digital health companies continue to market white-label versions of GLP-1s and new forms, like oral tablets, become more widespread.

I was on the PATH train to New Jersey, and the entire train car was papered with overweight people smiling and inserting an injectable pen into their biceps and folded stomachs. I had to look away, in part, because I’m queasy around needles, in part, because I didn’t want to internalize the messaging.

Something I’ve only appreciated recently is that Ozempic is the new nicotine patch. I’ve read two books recently that have really brought to light today’s food crisis: Magic Pill by Johann Hari and Ultra-Processed People by Chris Van Tulleken.

Both speak to the rise in obesity rates in the 1970s, rising from 13% to 23% by 1990, to 42% in 2020. This coincides with the rise of ultra-processed food, packaged foods made from many manufactured ingredients that are designed to be convenient, cheap, and hyper-palatable. They are also designed to push past the point of satiety so that we are always hungry for more, more, more.

Currently, the ultra-processed food market grosses $2 trillion globally and is expected to rise to $3.2 trillion in 2032, at a seven percent compound annual growth rate. This growth is enough to make any analyst’s mouth water. Major companies like PepsiCo, Nestlé, and Kraft Heinz each generate tens of billions in annual revenue in U.S. sales alone.

UPF companies spend $14 billion on advertising in the U.S. annually. Something that struck me in Van Tulleran’s book was that it makes sense to market UPF because you can capture the value of marketing a Big Mac, KFC bucket, or Kraft macaroni and cheese. With the exception of market leaders in product categories like Cargill for beef, even with extremely powerful ad campaigns like “Got Milk” or “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner” specific companies or products aren’t getting a sales uplift from general, compared to trademarked, product marketing. Who has a monopoly on red peppers or salmon or rice or any of the other “whole foods” that present an alternative to UPF?

Studies have shown that, even with the same caloric and nutritional content, people eat more calories on UPF. Anyone who has breezed through a pack of chips or cookies and laughed at the number of servings on the package understands this.

Both books also do a great job of dispelling other possible explanations for the rise of obesity, such as the rise in sedentary lifestyles. There was a fascinating study mentioned in Van Tulleran’s book that found that a tribe of hunter gatherers in Tanzania burned the same number of calories per day as most Western desk workers, as the body regulates exertion with intense rest. Both authors emphasized that, while exercise does not often lead to weight loss, it delivers immense physical and mental health benefits, from reduced stress to increased cardio-vascular health. But a sedentary lifestyle is not the driving force of the obesity crisis.

Something I appreciated about Hari, who himself is on Ozempic, is that he was honest about his weight and food struggles. His genuine love of fried chicken came through the page. He provides a balanced account of the acute risks of obesity, such as risk of stroke, with the emerging risks of weight loss drugs, such as thyroid cancer and depression. Ultimately, he concludes that if your BMI is above 27, the risks of the weight may outweigh the risks of a drug that hasn’t been tested outside of 18 years of testing on diabetics. This is even more true if you’re obese (BMI>30) or severely obese (BMI>40).

To be clear, I am not suggesting, nor am qualified to suggest, that the health risks of Ozempic are parallel to the health risks of a nicotine patch. What I am suggesting is that it’s a synthetic (and money-making) solution to a synthetic (and money-making) problem.

So much of the conversation around these drugs has focused on the risks to the body positivity movement, something I’m very passionate about. This tension became personal recently when I received an email from the founder of the body positive dance studio I teach at, as she “came out” about going on a “Hers weight loss journey.”

But beyond the body positivity debate lies a broader systemic issue: we’re allowing companies, both pharmaceutical and digital health, to become stupid rich off of a food crisis created by profit-driven food companies. Just look at the rise in share price of pharmaceutical manufacturers of the drug like Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly or distributors like Hims & Hers Health.

Both authors agree that the preferred attack would be to address the problem at the source, regulating the food companies that make their supply attractive and available to the population. Changing the way that people eat may seem like an impossible lift, but Hari compared it to the public health crisis of smoking, which led to widespread lung cancer. In a generation, regulations banning smoking in restaurants, taxing cigarettes, and implementing public health alerts on packaging resulted in the number of American smokers dropping from 42% of the population in 1965, to 12% in 2021. This is directly inverse to the obesity trend over the same period.

In another of Hari’s books, Lost Connections, he suggests that the pervasiveness of anti-depressants is because other strategies to reduce anxiety and depression are not able to be monetized. Who is making money off of meeting up with friends or spending time in nature or having greater autonomy over one’s work?

I’m a sucker for UPF. I adore frozen mac and cheese, low-calorie “ice cream” that encourages you to eat the whole pint, and dessert-flavored protein bars. That said, I’ve done Whole 30 (admittedly, with some liberal interpretations) the past three Januarys and have learned to love coconut water and zoodles. I wouldn’t say this new knowledge has transformed my eating habits, but it has influenced it.

As we grapple with the growing prevalence of weight loss drugs in our society, we must continue to examine and challenge the food system that created this crisis. The solution to ultra-processed foods shouldn’t just be ultra-processed medicines — we need to address the root cause while ensuring access to necessary medical interventions for those who need them most.

The Affordable Care Act was designed to guarantee women access to birth control without out-of-pocket costs, regardless of their insurance plan. In practice, as my recent experience in New York City demonstrates, the reality is far more complicated and frustrating.

The Runaround Begins

I have used Nexplanon for several years. It’s a long-acting reversible contraceptive that is over 99 percent effective and is implanted into the upper arm. I chose this option because it’s a “set it and forget it” type of birth control. I had heard that getting a vaginal IUD can be extremely painful (so much so that the leading industry group for gynecologists now recommends local anesthetics), and condoms and oral pills are only 87 and 93 percent effective, respectively, when accounting for user error.

I had my most recent Nexplanon inserted in February 2019. According to both the Nexplanon and FDA websites, the device is effective for up to three years. So, I went to get it replaced in February 2022. At the OB/GYN office, I was told that the device is actually effective for up to five years. I confirmed this with Planned Parenthood’s free chat service. My OB/GYN speculated that the discrepancy might be a tactic by Nexplanon’s parent company, Merck, to boost sales.

Deductible Drama

This year, I used Zocdoc to find an in-network OB/GYN to replace my Nexplanon. I scheduled an appointment with the same OB/GYN who had performed my annual well-woman visit. Despite attempting to address the replacement during that visit in October, they lacked the necessary device and asked me to return in two weeks. When I voiced my concerns about committing to a five-year device, the OB/GYN advised against unplanned pregnancies and left before we could discuss my options.

On the day of the appointment, I was anxious about the procedure and hesitant to bring my husband for support, fearing it might seem excessive. More significantly, choosing to replace my Nexplanon felt like a definitive step away from having biological children. At 32, with the device effective for five years, I felt I was making a permanent decision about my future.

The Cost Confusion

When I checked in, the receptionist informed me of a $150 co-pay.

“What? Isn’t birth control supposed to be free?” I asked.

“You have a high deductible plan,” she replied. This led to further complications. I am self-employed and purchase health insurance through state exchanges, paying $618.92 a month for a Bronze plan with MetroPlus Health. My plan has a $4,600 deductible and a $9,450 maximum out-of-pocket, and it has not covered any healthcare costs since I enrolled.

“I understand, but my deductible shouldn’t affect this. All plans, especially those on state exchanges, are required to cover birth control,” I countered. Wasn’t that a core provision of the ACA?

“I don’t know. You can call your insurance company. All I know is we’re charging you $150 today. Or I can cancel the appointment,” she said.

Frustrated, I decided to cancel. “I’ll cancel the appointment. Thank you.”

“Consider contacting Planned Parenthood,” she suggested.

“Thanks,” I said, turning to my husband. “Let’s go.”

When we got home, we called Planned Parenthood. The representative said we could schedule an appointment, but she couldn’t provide the cost. Someone would call us back with the information, though she couldn’t say when. We would just have to wait for the call.

Insurance Coverage Confusion

According to my insurance plan documents:

“We cover family planning services, including FDA-approved contraceptive methods, patient education and counseling, and device insertion and removal. These services are not subject to copayments, deductibles, or coinsurance.”

I called MetroPlus Health and, after 20 minutes on hold, explained the situation. The representative confirmed that the device should be covered but couldn’t clarify coverage for removal or replacement.

“I can’t remove it myself,” I said. “If you don’t know if the procedure is covered, who should I talk to?”

“Let me check for providers fully covered by your plan,” the representative said.

After a while, I was told there was only one in-network family planning provider listed. I called the recommended New York Health and Hospitals number and, after long wait times and being passed around, learned that the OB/GYN wasn’t accepting new patients.

Finding a Provider

Eventually, MetroPlus Health referred me to a federally qualified health center where I saw a women’s health nurse practitioner (NP). While NPs provide valuable care, they have less training compared to OB/GYNs. NPs complete 500–1,000 clinical hours, while OB/GYNs complete over 10,000. Despite this, I had to wait six weeks for an appointment and was charged the full $75 specialist co-pay.

At the appointment, I was told that the $1,200 Nexplanon device needed insurance approval before the procedure could be performed. I had to fill out a form and wait for an insurance call to confirm the order. The NP assured me I was still protected, but I felt uneasy about the process.

When scheduling a follow-up appointment, I was told the next available slot was five weeks away. I asked if I would need to pay the $75 copay again and received an uncertain response.

The Final Hurdle

On August 28, the pharmacy confirmed that my insurance had approved the order and scheduled delivery for the following morning. Despite initial confusion at the office, the device arrived on time, and I was able to have my Nexplanon replaced successfully.

Conclusion: A Call to Action

After ten months, four visits, numerous phone calls, and $75, I finally had effective birth control. Unfortunately, my experience is not unique. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, one in five women (18%) are not using their preferred contraceptive method, and a quarter (25%) say it’s because they can’t afford it. Additionally, 21% of women with private insurance still pay out-of-pocket costs for contraceptive care.

As we continue to fight for reproductive rights in a post-Roe America, we must address these critical gaps in contraceptive access. The promise of free birth control remains unfulfilled for too many women. It’s time for systemic change to ensure that the right to accessible and affordable birth control becomes a reality for everyone. Advocate for better contraceptive access, support reproductive rights organizations, and push for reforms to bridge these gaps in care.

The Myth of Free Birth Control was originally published in Modern Women on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A year ago today, I visited the Museum of Broadway, a new attraction in Midtown Manhattan chronicling the history of the Great White Way. In the lower level, an immersive exhibit profiles different behind-the-scenes Broadway roles. Reading the producer description, I felt a tingle throughout my body. As a startup founder, I’ve long loved ushering ideas from brain waves to the physical world. Could I do that for BROADWAY?

Over the past year, I’ve learned much about Broadway investing and producing, thanks to many veterans generous with their time and knowledge. In that spirit, I’d like to share some lessons:

1. Broadway investments pay like dividends

Revenue comes from ticket sales. The theater deducts a percentage for operating the box office, and you subtract weekly operating expenses (salaries, rentals, marketing, general and administrative costs) and royalties (paid to the book writer, composer, and lyricist from gross weekly box office receipts or net weekly operating profits). This leaves you with a weekly operating profit or loss. This money repays the capitalization — all costs from sets to development to out-of-town runs to reserves that get you to opening night. Investors are paid back until they’re made whole, known as recoupment. Since Broadway’s post-pandemic reopening, shows that have recouped include new musicals like Six and & Juliet, and star-driven limited run revivals such as Merrily We Roll Along and Enemy of the People.

After recoupment, profits are typically split 50/50 between the investor group and the producing team. These profits are distributed, usually quarterly, as long as the show runs on Broadway. The dream is a hit that runs for many years. Investing in or producing an original musical or play also qualifies you for subsidiary rights, earning royalties whenever the piece is performed. This could mean revenue for years from international transfers, national tours, and regional licensing. When assessing productions, it’s crucial to consider commercial viability beyond New York.

2. Theaters are the limited resource

Broadway theaters are owned by three groups: the Shubert Organization (seventeen theatres), the Nederlander Organization (nine theatres), and ATG Entertainment/Jujumcyn (seven theatres). Theaters receive a fixed fee and a percentage of ticket sales, in addition to box office operation fees, potentially earning ~$1M per show. They have a vested interest in attracting high-grossing productions, and producers often must wait for an appropriately sized and located theater to become available.

3. The importance of reassessing recoupment charts

Recoupment charts show investors how many weeks it would take to repay the initial capitalization at different occupancy levels. However, these charts contain many assumptions, particularly about average ticket price and theater size. I always recreate the PDF recoupment chart to extract the assumed average ticket price and adjust it based on publicly available weekly grosses and average ticket prices.

4. Inflation is real on Broadway

Costs have significantly increased. Musicals once costing $10-$15M now run $15-$25M. Theater modifications, like creating a dance floor for Here Lies Love or a nightclub for Cabaret, further increase expenses. Many are turning to London’s West End, where production costs can be a third of Broadway’s.

One way productions offset rising costs is through the NYC Musical and Theatrical Tax Credit Program, offering up to a $3M tax credit for NYC-based productions through September 2025.

5. Star casting works but is expensive

Recent recouped revivals were star-driven (Merrily had Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, and Lindsay Mendez; Enemy of the People featured Succession’s Jeremy Strong). Our co-production, Queen of Versailles, stars beloved Broadway icon Kristin Chenoweth. Stars significantly drive ticket sales, especially for less-known content, but can take a large percentage (~10%) of gross ticket sales net card processing fees.

Another downside of star casting is that is generally limits the run, as the star commits for a 10 to 52 week period then wants to open themselves to other opportunities.

6. Reviews matter

While critics’ opinions can matter less for shows with strong intellectual property, like The Great Gatsby, critical reception can really affect ticket sales. For instance, after being nominated for and winning the Tony Award for Best Musical, The Outsiders saw a significant boost in ticket sales, increasing by approximately $500K per week.

7. Shows take a long time to develop

Most shows take a long time to develop, around five to eight years for a new musical. Before coming to Broadway, shows will generally do an out of town run, or a run outside of New York City, (like what we’re doing for Queen of Versailles in Boston) to get and incorporate both audience and critic feedback. Transfer timelines will depend on how long the creative team feels they need to improve the show and theater availability.

My journey into Broadway investing and producing has been both exhilarating and enlightening. As I continue to build my portfolio, I’m reminded that Broadway is not just about the glitz and glamour — it’s a complex ecosystem of creativity, business acumen, and calculated risks.

For those intrigued by the world of Broadway investing and producing, there’s never been a more exciting time to get involved. The industry is evolving, with new challenges and opportunities emerging in the wake of the pandemic and changing audience behaviors. Whether you’re a seasoned investor looking to diversify your portfolio or a theater enthusiast wanting to play a more active role in bringing stories to life, Broadway offers unique possibilities.

If you’re interested in learning more about Broadway investing or staying updated on my producing journey, I invite you to connect with me on LinkedIn or visit our website.

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Behind the Curtain: 7 Insider Lessons from My Year in the Business of Broadway was originally published in InsiderFinance Wire on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’m by no means a nature girlie, so being in the wilderness is not my preferred state. Especially professionally.

Some of the greatest among us have spent long periods in the wilderness, nestled between successes. There are many infamous wilderness stories: Churchill’s decade in the wilderness between a botched WWI operation and being elected MP, Lindsay Lohan’s struggle with drugs and alcohol between being a beloved child star and having a hit Netflix romcom, John Galliano’s firing from Dior for an anti-semitic drunken rant before emerging as a designer for Maison Margiela.

But one of my favorite wilderness stories to track is from my favorite reality TV show: Vanderpump Rules. Two of the show’s original cast members, Kristen Doute and Jax Taylor, found themselves in the professional wilderness after controversial past remarks and actions came to light in 2020.

For Kristen, she was fired from Vanderpump Rules after her former co-star Faith Stowers, of recorded affair with Jax infamy, revealed that Kristen had falsely reported her to the police for a crime in 2018, allegedly motivated by racial biases. Kristen also faced backlash over resurfaced tweets in which she used insensitive and racist language.

Jax Taylor’s ouster stemmed from resurfaced audio recordings of him making insensitive remarks about the LGBTQ+ community (despite being married by Lance Bass), as well as past accusations of cheating and bad behavior on the show. It probably also had something to do with telling THE Lisa Vanderpump that he was the star of the show that donned her name.

After being let go from the popular Bravo reality series that had been their main income source for over eight seasons (they went from earning $1,000 per episode for Season 1 to $25,000 per episode in 2018), Kristen and Jax had to forge new career paths outside of Vanderpump Rules.

They leveraged their social media followings (Jax has 1.2M followers; Kristen has 992K) to hawk products, from hair regrowth serums to bathing suits, as influencers. They launched podcasts. Jax launched “When Reality Hits with Jax and Brittany” with his wife, also let go from VPR, and Kristen launched “Sex, Love and What Else Matters” in 2021. It’s unclear how much each podcast episode brought in, but neither was ranked as a top podcast on major charts like Apple or Spotify or likely brought in anything close to the 1M weekly audience of VPR.

There’s a heartbreaking confessional in The Valley where Jax says to the camera, “There was one day, and the phone just stopped ringing.” Kristen refers to this wilderness period as one of the hardest in her life.

After years in the wilderness, Jax plotted his return to reality TV by pitching a show called The Valley to Bravo and the executive producer of Vanderpump Rules, Alex Baskin. The Valley was envisioned as an unscripted look at their post-Vanderpump lives, no longer working at a restaurant but rather building families in their 40s. The Valley, then called Vanderpump Valley, was the initial plan for the original cast of VPR, given that there was a fresh crop of 20-somethings working at Sur, the Vanderpump-owned restaurant on which the initial seasons of VPR centered itself. However, when multiple members of the original cast, including Jax and Kristen, had their reputations decimated, the plan was abandoned until recently resurrected.

The Valley premiered on Bravo in early 2024 to solid ratings. The debut episode, which seamlessly transitioned from VPR just as VPR starting with a seamless transitions from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, drew around 900,000 live viewers, putting it among Bravo’s highest rated new unscripted series premieres in recent years.

Reviews praised the show’s drama and inside look at Kristen and Jax trying to rebuild their brands after the controversies that got them fired from Vanderpump Rules. Viewers seemed invested in seeing if the duo could realize healthy relationships personally and redeem themselves professionally. Jax opened a sports bar (or, as haters are quick to point out, a room in an established bar, Rocco’s) in Studio City. Kristen revived (and relaunched on television) her James Mae t-shirt line.

While a full season ratings picture is still emerging, the promising debut numbers (and Rihanna’s fandom) indicate Kristen and Jax have successfully navigated their way out of the professional wilderness with The Valley’s early success on Bravo.

After years away from reality TV, they have reestablished themselves with a new hit show allowing them to move forward from the Vanderpump Rules fallout, which is poetic given the pause in filming and uncertain future for the very show they were fired from. The Valley represents their personal and professional comeback stories in progress.

For better or worse, Jax and Kristen have re-established themselves at the center of the genre that made them famous in the first place. Jax is a self-admitted lying pig and “crazy Kristen” is an undeniable chaos agent. Their wilderness period was the manifestation of karma. But, in a weird way, it’s uplifting and inspiring to see them fight their way back to relevance, to demand they live their purpose, even if that purpose is being messy as f*ck on reality TV.

Don’t get me wrong — I slayed my 20s. I try to come up with a word to describe each of my decades. While I seek to focus my 30s on creation (of enduring brands, new family structures, and financial independence), my 20s were focused on exploration: of education (in getting my Bachelor’s and MBA), the world (I lived abroad for four years and visited 30 countries), and relationships (I dated around before meeting my husband at 29).

But the decade still had a sense of suspension. I have amazing friends, but, as my college friend outlined, it was a decade “between families.” I went from the structure of nightly home-cooked dinners to ad-hoc plans.

I recently read Rhaina Cohen’s The Other Significant Others, which reimagines life with friendship at the center. I loved so much of this book, including the anecdotes of pairs of committed friends who decided to coparent, cohabitate, and co-care for each other. She mentions that so much of our legal and social structure fails to give space, much less the dignity of a label, to those ride-or-die friendships. Friends cannot accompany friends to the hospital without paperwork or inherit property tax-free or get a plus-one invitation to a wedding or live together without rumors of sexual involvement. They cannot enjoy bereavement leave, something I experienced first hand when I lost my best friend to breast cancer nearly three years ago. I found myself insisting, “She’s like my sister,” to get others to grasp the gravity of the loss.

I’ve also recently read critiques of marriage, from This American Ex-Wife (although her husband just seems like an asshole who used marriage as cover for his patriarchal behavior) to All The Single Ladies to, my favorite, Fleishman is in Trouble (people think I’m sick in the head when I insist this book is an essential premarital read). All of these books paint pictures of marriages plagued by contempt and a desire to cut their partners, usually the woman, down to size. Who the hell would want to be in a relationship like THAT? A bad relationship is clearly worse than no relationship.

I’m writing this on a flight back from a friend’s wedding Sydney, a three-day extravaganza with Yoruba, Western, and Hindi ceremonies. I was struck by how their love was the genesis for a new family. I loved seeing Nigerian and Indian aunties clad in patterned head wraps and bejeweled saris exchange moves on the dance floor, from hip circles to shoulder bounces. It was beautiful to witness the alchemy of two proud cultures. I felt love as I looked at my introvert husband, who used his scant vacation days to travel to the other side of the world to be by my side for the celebrations.

I was speaking with a single friend whose parents live abroad, and she mentioned feeling untethered, a feeling I knew all too well living in East Africa. As I reflect on all of this, I’m of the opinion that marriage is not for everyone, and a bad marriage just to check the box is definitely to be avoided, but everyone needs a family. We thrive when we have a lifelong ride-or-die. An emergency contact. A witness to your life. Someone who you can turn to and ask, “Remember when?”

And we also need an A-team, a group of close friends and family who can illuminate one’s whole being and provide fresh voice, perspective, and experience. We need other significant others.

For instance, my husband and my mom, my two ride-or-dies, are not entrepreneurs. Whenever I bring new ideas to them (a multiple-times-a-week occurrence), they ask grounding questions, trying to assess the viability of the ideas and how they would be executed. That’s often not what I need. I need a hype person, a “yes, and!” reaction. My friends who are artists and entrepreneurs understand the emotional volatility and know what to say to keep me going. I’d also love to cohabitate with friends. My dream is to buy a multi-family home in New York City, so everyone has their own space but we have a shared yard, as some of my friends have done in D.C.

I think in marriage, there’s a risk of focusing so strongly on your nuclear family that everyone else falls away and your world gets smaller. I’m realizing that the beauty is in both having a nuclear family or person, not necessarily romantic, who can be a reliable source of love, joy, and mutual support, while also having a life full of other long, joyful, supportive friends, or, as Rhaiana says, a life of “other significant others.”

I just finished reading Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class by Rob Henderson. I picked up the book because my husband and I are exploring adopting from the foster system, and I wanted to learn more about his experience and hopefully pick up some advice on how to parent someone who had experienced a tumultuous early childhood.

I was surprised when the book took a hard pivot near the end to critique social class and “luxury beliefs.” Rob went from foster care to a poor adopted family in California to the military to Yale, Stanford, and Cambridge, so definitely had some hot takes.

I also recently finished Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez, which features a protagonist, Raquel, a Latina who struggles to find her place in Brown’s Art History department after growing up in Brooklyn.

Both protagonists talk about the culture shock of entering the Ivy League, the new language and markers of class to be learned and adopted. Rob mentions no one using the soda fountain and students espousing but not living ultra-progressive beliefs (e.g., decriminalizing hard drugs, normalizing polyamory). Raquel mentions luxury toiletries, the idolization of thinness, the refutation of raw anger, parent-funded trips to Europe, and the ease of speaking with professors.

I remember the culture shock of elite vocabulary and norms in college and my first job afterwards. At McKinsey, I learned that diners with booths and fluorescent lighting are not a good choice for team dinners, and I should stick with New American farm-to-table spots. I learned about new foods like quinoa and arugula (as well as learned the hard way that sweetbreads were calf organs?!). I learned how to pronounce Syrah and ceviche. I learned the difference between a carry-on and full-size suitcase and how to hold chopsticks. I learned that head to toe cheetah print and pink heels were tacky, and it was not appropriate to wear jean Bermuda shorts to Casual Fridays in the office (who knew?).

At 32-years-old, I’ve now spent over a decade wrapped in elite culture, but I still feel of two worlds, especially when I’m around my family or back in my hometown. Stories like Troubled, Anita de Monte Laughs Last, and my own are often told; stories of high-achieving, ambitious, wanting-more children clawing their way into the selective worlds of prestige.

Tales of upward mobility are well-documented, but what of the narrative of downward mobility? How does one reconcile the potential loss of a birthright, the adjustment from a life of affluence to one of modest means?

Recent encounters have brought this quandary into sharper focus. My husband and I were out to dinner Friday night at a neighborhood Asian-inspired vegan restaurant (bougie, I know). My favorite dish there is the General Tsoy’s Protein, an $18 entree, which is deep-fried seitan.

Just as our entrees came out, a couple in their 30s with a young boy, maybe around 7-years-old, sat next to us. The boy was perfectly well-behaved and spent the majority of dinner playing with crayons and his coloring book, but when it came time to order, his parents were explaining that seitan is plant-based chicken and they think he’d like it.

This was on the heels of another Brooklyn experience: I treated myself to a $8 frozen yogurt at a neighborhood spot. While I was in bliss, savoring each nip of my Nutella frozen yogurt with dark chocolate sauce, I overhead a group of maybe five adults with an equal number of kids. The kids were saying they didn’t like their yogurts and had stirred them into gloopy messes. The parents smiled, reassured their kids, laughed at the mess, and tossed the half-eaten cups into the garbage, before the whole crew set off down the block.

I didn’t know who I was more angry with — the unknowingly bratty kids or the flippant parents. Don’t either of them understand how crazy it is to pay $8 for a cup of frozen freaking yogurt?! Or $18 for a plant-based chicken dish that the child will almost certainly not appreciate?!

Just in voicing this, I’m betraying my class of origin, because another luxury belief is that it’s rude to talk about money. But this casual acceptance of such indulgences is a stark contrast to my own upbringing, where every dollar was meticulously accounted for, and the value of even the most modest purchases was ingrained from an early age.

For those of us who have journeyed from more modest beginnings, each new discovery — be it a culinary delight or a cultural experience — carries with it a sense of cherished wonder.

What happens when the luxuries and privileges that define one’s childhood become the norm? When seitan and artisanal frozen yogurt are mere commonplaces, what is left to experience, to marvel at, as an adult? If you start at the top, doesn’t any change feel like a fall? Or does it never really change, because there’s the soft landing of inheritance?

What if that child wants to become a teacher like my mom? Or a physical therapist like my sister? These unbelievably fulfilling vocations are great jobs, but they don’t support a posh Brooklyn lifestyle. If that lifestyle is normalized so young, how does one adjust? Is it the same adjustment as it was for me, accepting your adult life looks a lot different than your childhood? It seems much harder. I’ll have to confront this as a parent, but hope to work to ensure my kids are grounded, grateful, and unshackled to a material lifestyle that unintentionally stunts the expression of their callings.

Surely you’ve heard about the bad blood between Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun. It all started back in 2019 when Scooter’s company acquired the rights to Taylor’s first six studio albums from her former record label Big Machine, without her consent. Taylor, in response, re-recorded her classics like “Fearless” and “Red” to spite Scooter’s ownership of her original masters. She now owns the master recordings and rights on the re-recorded versions, as well as negotiated ownership of her masters when she signed a new contract with Universal Music Group when her Big Machine contract expired in 2018.

But while her re-recording her classic albums to regain ownership was an iconic power move, no star has mastered the art of controlling their empire quite like Jay-Z.

The Brooklyn Library’s “Book of HOV” exhibit celebrated Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter’s journey from rising rap star to ultimate music mogul. One defining lyrics summed up his ambitious spirit: “Uncontrollable hustler’s ambition, some of y’all thought I was crazy, maybe.” His journey was also detailed in the fabulous book by Dan Charnas, The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop.

From his earliest days, Jay obsessed over not just making hits but maintaining true ownership. His first big swing? Co-founding Roc-A-Fella Records in 1995 with Damon Dash and Kareem “Biggs” Burke. The three childhood friends from Brooklyn had big aspirations of starting their own rap label and taking hip-hop to new heights.

Jay-Z had just released his debut album Reasonable Doubt in 1996 through Priority Records, which was a modest success. But he and his partners wanted even more control and ownership over his music. That’s when they decided to launch their own independent Roc-A-Fella imprint.

Using the $3 million they had earned from Reasonable Doubt as seed funding, Jay, Dame, and Biggs officially established Roc-A-Fella Records in 1996. Their first big move was signing Memphis rapper Memphitz and releasing his album that year.

In 1997, they negotiated a $3 million distribution deal with Def Jam/PolyGram to help finance and distribute future Roc-A-Fella releases like Jay’s sophomore album In My Lifetime, Vol. 1. This major label backing gave them more resources while maintaining their independence. As part of this, Jay and his co-founders Damon Dash and Kareem Burke received upfront money, but still did not own any equity in the Def Jam parent company.

From there, Roc-A-Fella went on to release a string of iconic Jay-Z albums like Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life, Vol. 3… Life and Times of S. Carter, and The Blueprint in collaboration wtih Def Jam. They also put out successful projects from artists like Memphis Bleek, Beanie Sigel, and State Property.

While making hit records, the Roc-A-Fella founders pioneered new entrepreneurial moves like diversifying into clothing with the Rocawear apparel brand, largely led by Damon Dash, who was eventually displaced from both companies after feeling that Jay was getting too close to the Def Jam team. (When Dash tried to claim responsibility for Jay’s success, Jay-Z responded with the lyric, “I heard motherf**kers sayin’ they made Hov,
Made Hov say, ‘Okay, so make another Hov’.”

In 2004, Jay-Z negotiated a unique “360 deal” with Def Jam Records when he was brought on as the president and co-owner of the legendary hip-hop label. The specifics were:

• Jay became the CEO and was given a minority ownership stake in Def Jam (estimated around 3–7%)
• He was able to release his own albums through Def Jam while co-owning the label
• The deal allowed Def Jam/Universal Music Group to collect a percentage of Jay’s non-musical earnings like tours, merchandise, etc.

So in exchange for giving up a cut of his non-recording revenues, Jay got an equity stake in one of the most iconic rap labels, as well as a leadership role overseeing the entire operation.

This gave him more control over his music releases, a share of Def Jam’s overall profits, and valuable experience running a major label during his tenure as president from 2004–2008.

But that was just the start.

Jay-Z has been incredibly savvy about expanding his ownership across different parts of the music industry value chain over time. Here are some of his major moves:

Roc Nation: In 2008, Jay-Z and Live Nation launched a joint venture, Roc Nation, a full-service management, recording, touring and production company. The $150 million deal gave Live Nation touring rights for Jay’s future concerts for 10 years, and Live Nation supplied $5 million per year for overhead and startup costs for the joint venture. This vertically integrated functions like managing artists’ careers, recording music, booking tours and doing multimedia productions all under one umbrella that Jay-Z has 50 percent ownership in.

Tidal Streaming Service: In 2015, Jay bought the parent company of Norwegian streaming service Tidal for $56 million. As an artist-owner of the platform, this gave him equity in the streaming revenues for his own music, as well as leverage when negotiating deals for other artists. In 2021, Jay-Z sold Tidal to Square and its founder, Jack Dorsey, for $297 million in cash and stock.

At every step, Jay-Z applied his self-described “uncontrollable ambition” to control more of music’s monetization pipelines. From records to streaming to touring to management to venues, he’s built a sprawling empire that makes him far more than “just” a rap star, proving his decree, “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business…man.”